We got one of those big jars of Vita herring in sour cream for christmas, but we never refrigerated it. It says right on the jar: "Keep refrigerated." So "duh." You know in the old days we would get this stuff right of grocery shelves and we didnt refrigerated it until we opened it. I think that is what we were thinking.

We had not opened the jar until day. It has Best by date of: "May 07".

But there are bubbles in it, and the gas has definitely been pushing the lid upward. The fish smells fine, though.

Is this a definite pitch the entire jar or: try a piece maybe okay?

I need to know soon, as I was planning to make that dish with the potatoes and the herring.

BUt I wont it's a goner. Problem is when we got it for christmas it came just like that, not refrigerated. And since the last time I had this was years ago, I always remember it on store shelves as not refrigerated. I just assumed it was refrigerated after opening.

Did something change in the last 10 years here? I always remember this on shelves.

I don't know what brand you're thinking of, but the Vita-brand herring was NEVER sold unrefrigerated. I've been buying it for well over 30 years now & both the regular "wine"-pickled & the sour cream types have ALWAYS been sold on the refrigerated shelves near the seafood department, or on the refrigerated shelves where the horseradish & packaged lunch meat is.

I've never ever seen this product sold unrefrigerated, even as a child - neither here in Virginia or in NY. In fact, I've never seen any brand of pickled herring sold unrefrigerated. Not in the last 10 years; not ever. You must be thinking of something else.

Store refrigerator space is premium space. If they could get away with selling something unrefrigerated, they would.

Just out of curiousity, you say you received it "unrefrigerated" for Christmas. Did you buy it mailorder; did it come as part of a gift basket? Perhaps whoever gave it to you assumed it wouldn't be unrefrigerated for very long & that you'd stick it in the fridge as soon as you received it.

No the lid was not bulging at all. It was after I opened it, of course I realized this was a problem, after I opened the gas pushed the herring upward about a half an inch.

I guess Breezy is right and I am remembering it wrong. The brand I'm thinking about is VITA, the brand name I mentioned in the original post. I know it always would up in the refrigerator in the old days but I just cant recall...

On the gift basket thing. Yeah it was sort of just, a present, you know wrapped in gift in wrap. I guess my in laws figured we'd eat it soon.